Doula Diary #1: A Waterfall Inside Me
It’s a few days before Christmas, and it’s sometime after midnight in a hospital room.
Christmas lights strung up around the TV and wall sconces.
No bright hospital lights. In the hallway, everything is overhead and fluorescent.
But in here, it’s a festive glow. Warm and womb-like.
The peaks and valleys of contractions lighting up a monitor.
I’m massaging my client’s hand with lavender and oil.
I’m thinking about Christmas, about Mother Mary giving birth in the manger. About her two possible midwives, who appear in the Gospel of James but not in the Bible.
I’m thinking about all the children being ripped apart from their families in the name of nationalism. The babies and children in warzones.
I’m thinking about how everyone you meet or pass on the street had to take this same journey.
I’m thinking about how life as we know it begins here.
Except, I’m not thinking at all. I’m praying.
I’m trying to make my presence a prayer.
The thinking is what I do with my clients in our prenatal sessions.
Making birth plans. Practicing breathing techniques. Researching interventions. Rehearsing labor positions. Talking through fears and dreams and beliefs.
All that preparation, study, and forethought, so that when I’m in the sacred birth space with someone, I can drop so deeply into my heart, my body, and my faith that I can be a comfort.
As I hold my client’s hand, I feel power and love surging in her body.
I realize this is some of the most holy work I could ever do: massaging a woman’s hand as she labors.
The contractions start to build, rising higher on the chart, yet she is calm.
This is her birth, her journey, her child, but the chemical, hormonal shifts taking place in her body are so powerful, I feel it too.
As I rub out knots in her hands and gently press into the acupressure points that can ease labor pains, I close my eyes and start to see visions.
Old growth forests.
Sunbeams slanting through the trees.
A place of power, trust, surrender. No fear.
Even if a particular doctor has a habit of coming into the room to critique my client’s progress, bringing in fear and a rigid expectation of just how quickly a cervix is “supposed” to dilate, right now, it feels like there’s an unspoken understanding between me, mom, and baby.
We can trust this. The work is happening. It’s all unfolding in divine timing.
I begin to see a waterfall, and I relax into the image, feeling total peace.
An unstoppable force. Water cascading down, the energy of descent, of a baby moving through its aquatic world to take its first breath of air.
It’s a few days before Christmas, sometime after midnight in a hospital room, and I feel a waterfall inside me.
My client stirs from her deep focus and begins to speak.
“Oh…Wow…I just felt a gush of water.”
That’s when I know that without fear or hurry or worry, with only my presence as a prayer, I’m holding her hand as she begins to transition.
Thank you for reading!
If you felt the sacred magic in this story, share it with someone who needs to know they can be held with love, not fear, through their own transformation.
Next Doula Diary: The Magic of Transition ✨
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Much love,
Kira
